QUILTS & FABRIC: PAST & PRESENT

Thursday, June 30, 2016

Celebrate Canada Day on July 1 with quilts from the University of Alberta in Canada. They have a spectacular collection of Canadian quilts donated by Toronto quilt dealer Gloria Rosenberg ten years ago.

Here's the database.
I went through it at 30 quilts to a page, files with photos only and there were 25 pages to peruse.

Saturday, June 25, 2016

Becky fussy-cut a tulip shape from the Compton print in Morris Earthly Paradise to give the curved look here. There are no curved seams this week.

Compton by John Henry Dearle

The diamond

A Victorian tile floor at St. Albans

The block set with red triangles about 1900

I named this basic block Greenwood for a mythical place, a symbol of the English
forest. Greenwood refers to the Anglo-Saxon culture before the invasion of the Norman French in 1066. The image is in classic British literature from Robin Hood to Shakespeare---half of a dichotomy:

Forest and city

Anglo-Saxon and Norman

Ancient and Modern

Freedom and Authority

William Morris spent his childhood near the Epping Forest, a landscape
that seduced him with a "ferocious enchantment". That two-sided view of the world shaped Morris's life and work.

The pattern is BlockBase #239, and variations have different numbers

as there are so many ways of looking at the 12 diamonds.

From the Tennessee project; photo from the Quilt Index.

A typical silk example date-inscribed 1876

with a very atypical back.

The label (the same size as the quilt) says:

1876

Franz(?) C Smith

Elkhart Co. Ind.

Here's a version from the 1930s set all over.

Early-20th-century example, set with triangles.

About 1940 from Cindy's Antiques

If you are careful with your coloring you

get a 3-D illusion.

The Ladies Art Company showed it as an all-over

diamond pattern and called it Variegated Diamonds...

and also fit it into a rectangle and called it Hexagonal.

Pattern for an 8"
Hexagon

(4" sides)

To Print:

Create a word file or a new empty JPG file that
is 8-1/2" x 11".

Click on the image above.

Right click on it and save it to your file.

Print that file out 8-1/2" x 11". The
hexagon should measure 4" on the sides.

Adjust the printed page size if necessary.

Add seams when you cut the fabric.

Marnie had a date question about this large version fit

into a rectangle, Could it be from about 1800? Could be,

those are some o-o-old prints.

This is another hexie example were quilts in the design were made earlier than the paper patterns.

A British medallion with the pattern in the borders, date-inscribed

1808, in the collection of the International Quilt Study Group and Museum.

We see it in silks in the last half of the 19th century.

This variation is set all over in velvets.

It was also done often in calico scraps.

Above and below

cheater cloth, printed patchwork, from about 1875.

A top date-inscribed 1945

An unusual set, dated 1909

One More Inspiration

Circle of Stars from Kaffe Fassett's

Simple Shapes-Spectacular Quilts

Epping Forest is the largest green space in London. Visit Morris's childhood Greenwood:

Thursday, June 23, 2016

It's in my Encyclopedia of Applique, #44.9, but up till recently this was the only

example I'd seen.

The two-way mirror image symmetry is interesting as is the layering of the pink and red feathery flowers.

Nancy Hornback did a good deal of research on the quiltmaker, finding Mary A. Turley (1854-1917) probably made the quilt in Indiana before coming to Kansas to marry Levi Morgan in 1871. She stitched the quilt at 15 and married at 17.

Mary was born in Marion County, Indiana, in what is now a suburb of Indianapolis.

See a little more about how the Turleys came from Virginia to Indiana at this site:

Perhaps this is the maker:
"Alice Rose Smith, daughter of Squire and Sarah
Smith, was born in Marion Co. Ind. Oct. 3, 1853. was married Oct. 25, 1871, to Mat Klein who was born
in Delaware Co. Ind. Oct 6, 1848.
75
There have been born to Alice Rose and Mat Klein
3 children, namely: May, Harry and Russell Madison.
Alice Rose and Mat Klein are living in Crawfordsville, Ind. and Mr. Klein is engaged in the jewelry
trade."

"The year following his coming to Crawfordsville, [1870]Mr. [Madison Conard] Klein married and his wife, Alice Rose Klein, a son Charles Harry Klein, a daughter Alice Mae Klein and granddaughter, Katherine May Klein, survive him."

If so we have two similar quilts made by women born a year apart in Marion County, Indiana. An Indiana pattern?

The Tennessee quilt was made by a Mrs. Ottinger in Parrottsville. The owner who brought the quilt to be photographed said she purchased it and that she had another one like it.

From the notes:

"There is another quilt identical to this one, but it is in very poor condition. This one is unused with the pencil markings for quilting lines still visible. Unusual applique design and an unusual quilting design used in this quilt. The quilt is longer (104 inches)than most quilts in this time period in Tennessee."

Ottinger is a common name in Parrottsville. I even found a tintype of someone's Aunt Mary Ottinger from Parrottsville, sold on an online auction.

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Borderland in Butternut & Blue

Sampler Quilt to Recall the Civil War Along the Kansas/Missouri Border. A BOM with 14" traditional blocks and lots of history.